Sunday, June 6, 2010

bathos \BEY-thos\, noun:

1. Triteness or triviality in style.

2. A ludicrous descent from the exalted or lofty to the commonplace; anticlimax.

3. Insincere pathos; sentimentality; mawkishness.

Bathos was introduced into English by Alexander Pope in his satirical 1727 essay, Peri Bathous, Or the Art of Sinking in Poetry.

brodak moment

• The perfect time for a picture with only the guys

The guys and I all passed out on the couch last night. It was such a brodak moment.

Trivia

What is Scotland’s Firth of Forth?

• It’s an estuary, or firth—a narrow arm of the sea—at the lower end of the River Forth, which flows into the North Sea.

History

• YMCA: was founded in London (1844)
• drive-in movie: opened in Camden, NJ (1933)
• SEC: commission was established to protect investors (1834)
• D-Day: Allied invasion of France marked a turning point in WWII (1944)
• James Meredith: the first African-American to attend the University of Mississippi was shot and wounded on a highway during his March Against Fear (1966)
• Eastern Mediterranean Event: asteroid exploded in the air over the sea between Libya and Crete (2002)
• Phylicia Rashad: became the first African-American actress to win a Best Actress Tony for her leading role in A Raisin in the Sun (2004)

Berfdays

• Diego Velázquez (1599-1660): baroque painter
• Nathan Hale (1755-1776): patriot of the American Revolution
• Thomas Mann (1875-1955): author of Death in Venice and The Magic Mountain; plus, writers R. C. Sherriff (1896-1975) and Maxine Kumin (85)
• Sukarno (1901-1970): first president of Indonesia; and, first president of the Irish Free State William Cosgrave (1880-1965)
• Roy Innis (76): civil rights leader, chairman of CORE
• Gary US Bonds (71): rock singer
• Björn Borg (54): five-time Wimbledon champion
• Paul Giamatti (43): played John Adams in the eponymous HBO miniseries; also, actors Robert Englund (61), Harvey Fierstein (56), Sandra Bernhard (55), Amanda Pays and Colin Quinn (both 51), Max Casella (43) and Sonya Walger (36)